Yahoo's Exceptional Performance Team just released an interesting tool that optimizes images for publishing on the web. Smush.it is completely cloud-based and you can choose to upload your images directly to the service, provide Smush.it with a URL, or use a Firefox plugin that analyzes a whole page at once. Smush.it provides a one-stop shop for compressing images and works with JPGs, PNGs, GIFs, and animated GIF files.
As Yahoo points out, there are already many image editing tools on the market that perform similar functions. Smush.it, however, automates this process and works for a variety of popular file formats, taking a lot of the hassle out of the process.
Smush.it works on two different levels. First, it strips all the metadata out of the file. For small files like logos or buttons, this data can make up a large part of their size and very few users will ever care what editor you used to create a button. After this, Smush.it applies a number of non-lossy, open-source image optimization algorithms to the image. Smush.it will also transform GIFs into more efficient PNG files when necessary and optimize PNGs and animated GIFs.
For most web pages we tested, Smush.it reduced the total image size by anywhere from 10 to 45%. For most sites, logos, buttons, and icons saw the largest improvements (often close to 90%), though we also noticed a lot of sites that did not optimize their screenshots and other images, which Smush.it was usually able to compress by anywhere between 10 to 30%. If you are a web developer or publisher, using Smush.it could potentially reduce your bandwidth bill significantly.
We only wish that Yahoo had picked a slightly less unfortunate URL for the service...
Comments
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It would be wonderful if app developers could use this as a service through an API.
It's nice to be able to use this as a webmaster building static pages or as a blogger writing posts, but for teams building dynamic applications this has little use.
Posted by: Clay Newton | September 30, 2008 11:24 AM
smushit didnt optimize all of their own images. run smushit on smushit.com, screenshot.png has room for optimization!
Posted by: Jeffrey | September 30, 2008 12:12 PM
Nice catch Jeffrey! But in their defense, they did optimize all the UI elements on the site and the screenshot only saved another 73 bytes. Maybe they optimized their service even more after the site went live...
Posted by: Frederic Lardinois
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September 30, 2008 12:29 PM
I ran the same image through Smush.it and through jpegoptim. Smush.it saved 8.46% whereas jpegoptim saved 8.01%. The minimal sample size makes this very anecdotal, but it looks like Smush.it has interesting performance. But without an API, this service will remain a gadget and users will stick to their scriptable tools that don't cost them a network round-trip and a manipulation by an untrusted third-party.
Posted by: Jean-Marc Liotier
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September 30, 2008 1:25 PM
Hi,
Thanks for the great feedback.
We plan to have both an API and a command line tool, so that people can put the tool where it belongs, as a part of the push/publishing process. We'll be working out the kinks in the UI first, so please send us your feedback/requests.
Cheers,
Nicole
Posted by: Stubbornella | September 30, 2008 4:03 PM
Great application. I am going to use it.
Posted by: Thejesh GN | October 1, 2008 12:13 AM
I copied the wrong numbers on my previous post... Smush.it saved 8.46% whereas jpegoptim saved 2.01% - not 8.01%... So much for proofreading... And this is of course a significant difference...
Posted by: Jean-Marc Liotier | October 1, 2008 1:54 AM
Since I mostly prepare my images for web in Photoshop I'm waiting for Photoshop plugin :)
Posted by: Design Live | October 2, 2008 3:48 PM